


Flying High and Falling Low

by lilolilyrae



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Prompt Fill, tog femslash fortnight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27215704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/pseuds/lilolilyrae
Summary: Quynh remembers the witch-hunts a little differently.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44
Collections: The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight 2020





	Flying High and Falling Low

**Author's Note:**

> Not quite a love confession (but it's in there, somewhere) <3
> 
> Written for the Femslash Fortnight Monday prompt: confessions

_A rope, tight, breaking her neck._

_Her eyes snapping open as she comes back to live, face to face with the crowd._

_Then darkness- water around her, hard metal meeting her flailing limbs, death coming to her again and again-_

_It isn't real! she wants to shout, to scream- it isn't real, I got free, this_ can't _be real!_

_But it is what her body and mind know best, after five hundred years in the ocean._

Quynh wakes from the nightmare with a shout, gasping for breath and hyperventilating when her lungs do meet air instead of the half-expected water.

At the movement and noise, Andy jumpes awake with a start, adrenaline running through her body as she looks around for threats.

"Just- Just a dream, Anh," Quynh wants to reassure her, though it is hard to speak.

"Just a- nightmare... not real... I was- I was broken, then drowning all over again..." she breaks off with a sob, she can't help it. Her emotions are too raw, the fear too real.

Andy sucks in a breath and puts her knife back under her pillow with shaking hands before she lies down next to Quynh again.

"I'm sorry you had to go through this, that it's still haunting you," she says, guilt heavy in her tone. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't." Quynh turns, facing away from her as she starts to shiver.

Usually it is Andy who doesn't want her weaknesses to be seen- _I'm not the best role model for her now_ , she thinks, sitting up.

"Quynh?" Quynh doesn't reply.

Andy snuggles closer to her, but instead of relaxing into her embrace, Quynh tenses even more.

Stroking over her back, Anh tries to calm her, but Quynh shakes off her hand entirely. 

Andromache flinches back as if burnt.

"I- I'm sorry," she repeats the oh-so-useless words. She had feard this, had been elated when Quynh didn't seem to hate her when they had met again, but of course- it had only been a matter of time for her to come to her senses.

"I understand if you do not want me near you anymore... Do you want me to leave?"

"What?! No!" Quynh coughes, shaking again as she sits up with a start and turns around to face her.

Andy frowns. "You _do_ want me here? Then what..."

" _You_ won't want to comfort me if you know the truth!"

Now, Andromache is entirely confused.

"The truth?" had Quynh come out of the water much earlier, leaving her to believe that she had still been suffering? She would have deserved it. But no, Nile had dreamt of her still... what could Quynh have possibly done to think she deserves her wrath?

"It wasn't your fault, it was mine!"

"What?" Andy already feels like she has lost track of this conversation and it has barely even started yet.

"It's _my own fault_ that I drowned, it's my fault we had gotten caught at all! I had forgotten to pretend to be dead the first time they killed us, it's because of _me_ -"

Quynh sobs again and Andy can do nothing but stare.

Yes, she _had_ wondered why the witchhunters had been so adamant on them being witches- they had gotten caught as witches in the past for various reasons but always managed to get away from the pile of bodies that had been left to rot.

When the next time, the hunters had killed them again and again instead, she had figured that their reputation must have preceded them- and after a while, of course, it had been obvious that they couldn't die, that their injuries healed much too quickly...

What had their first death there been? They had been hanged, hadn't they? Yes, they hadn't been taken down afterwards, had been left up for hours until it had been certain that they had still been twitching... did Quynh blame herself for that? 

"I didn't want to tell you while we were stuck in that cell," Quynh continues, "because we needed to work together to get out... I thought you would have time to be mad at me later. And then there _wasn't_ a later, and when I got out- I had forgotten, I mean it, I had honestly forgotten about it all, but when you said you're sorry- you don't need to be sorry for anything, Andromache! You planned the mission perfectly, I'm the one who ruined it. You shouldn't even have searched for me at all, I-"

"You think you deserved to drown for centuries because of some stupid mistake??" Andy asks, dumbstruck. "You don't! And I don't know how you can be so sure that it was your fault, I barely remember that anymore!"

When she sees that Quynh is about to interrupt her, she quickly continues: "Even then- I could _never_ want you to suffer, I could never want you to die. And we all make mistakes-"

" _You_ didn't!" Quynh hisses.

"I had millenia of practice before I even met you, I've lived through similar situations in the past! And I'm not infallible either, or have you forgotten about the fact that I got the entire team captured while-"

"That's still Livre's fault" Quynh grumbles under her breath.

"Sure, but I should have spotted it! And I didn't- because we all make mistakes! Quynh-"

"God, Anh..." suddenly, the fight has left her completely, and Quynh just wants Andy to hold her again. But the other woman is still talking:

"If anything, you should still hate me for not finding you, I abandoned you, left you to drown-"

Quynh looks up sharply. This is what Andy had meant earlier, when she had been afraid that Quynh didn't want her around anymore.

Well, she can't have that. "No! Anh- You couldn't, and, and, you tried!"

"Not enough!" tears are glinting in Andromache's eyes, and it makes Quynh break all over again.

"I don't blame you" she whispers. "I never did, not really, Anh."

Andy looks doubtful- then she frowns. "Can you understand that I don't blame you either, then?"

Quynh makes a soft sound and finally Andy is pulling her close again.

"Oh, fuck, Quynh, come here, let's discuss this in the morning, vâng, yêu?"

"Or never." Quynh mumbles.

Andy chuckles and presses a kiss to her forehead. 

"As long as we agree that it's nobody's fault." 

"Not either of us, just the 'hunters." Quynh nods sleepily, exhausted. "I could never hate you, you know..." she mumbles, already half asleep.

"I know. I know now."

They are a mess, the both of them, Andy knows this.

She loves Quynh, will always love her, and is quite certain the other feels the same- but things can't just immediately be the same as _before_ , not with everything that had happened.

They probably will need to talk about it all again when they are more awake. Some day, preferably with Yusuf to mediate... For now, they are together, and as long as neither of them wants to change that, everything else is secondary.

Curled up together, they slowly fall asleep again, finding calmer dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, even once they find together again, I think Andy and Quynh's relationship would have its highs and lows for a while...
> 
> If you liked it, let me know!  
> more Andromaquynh fanfic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930894)!


End file.
